You Can Buy Coziness From the Thrift Store

I do love my surroundings to be cozy.  I always have. As a child I loved to make a card-table tent, bring in my little doggy lamp, several pillows and my books and dream the night away. I have sought ways to make our family’s many homes cozy for over fifty years  and cannot resist thrifting things that I know will contribute to that end.

I am a true second-hand push-over.

This post includes the most wonderful lamp and clock which I have found in a long time and my super-find . . . a library table and chairs which is now in the space in front of my bookcases.

Here is the story.

My usual day for thrifting is Tuesday. That is because on Tuesday seniors get 30% off at Savers and that doesn’t mean seniors in high school. I am a senior and I am not going to miss that kind of savings.

You might think that things at thrift stores are already inexpensive and that is certainly true. However, 30% off of “inexpensive” is called ” cheap”.

I like cheap if it’s nice.

I had cast my eyes on this table the previous week. Oh, how I wanted to buy it but I resisted. After all, I had just asked Tom to finish a coffee table which I had brought home and he had been so good natured about it that I didn’t want to push my luck. Actually, that isn’t fair because I have never known Tom to be anything but good natured and since he says right out loud that he will do anything for me because I am a princess, I have come to expect wonderful things from him.

I went to Deseret Industries first and there I found four “library” chairs. They look  like the kind that might have  been in a real library or in an old, school classroom. I snatched them right up. That is not grammatically comfortable and Tom will whistle at that one when he sees it. The clerk wrote up the ticket but instead of charging me $8 per chair, he decided to charge me $6 per chair. Was there any chance that the table I had seen a week ago was still on the floor at Savers ? 

I doubted it. I really did.

I drove to Savers and walked back. Yikes. It was still there. I snagged the clerk and asked him to write up a ticket for me. I paid for the table and drove home.

Now came the tricky part.

The tricky part was that I had to get them home. Of course they wouldn’t fit in my car, even though I have a big trunk. So, that evening Heather came over with her truck and she and Tom went to get both the chairs and the table. 

I was in heaven. Heaven.

As you can see in the photograph above, I now have an old-fashioned library table and 4 chairs in the cozy space where I have my children’s book collection. It is so cozy that I just want to sit right down and read a book.

But, wait. It gets better and more cozy.

You meet all kinds of “characters” in a thrift store. Since I am always doing the same thing that they are doing, I must be a “character”, too. I spotted something incredible behind a bunch of very ordinary clocks. I tried not to call attention to myself as I reached for the wonderful “lovers” clock you see above, but there was a very big man, who was bald in front, with a long, gray, ponytail in back, standing very near where I was reaching. He had “peace” earrings in his ears and was clearly “of the 60s” which I understand because so am I. He however had been around the block, so to speak and struck up a conversation with me. I lifted the clock into my cart and he noted that I must like clocks. I said that I loved clocks and he told me about some clocks he liked. Then he told me that he had been going to AA for 26 years and had been a heroin addict as well, all after he had served in Viet Nam. I knew that made him about my age and I just smiled and told him that he must be a fighter to have overcome both of those problems. That was certainly more than I had needed to know.

I was ready to head for a lamp I saw ahead and felt quite anxious about it as “thrifters” feel when they are about to lose an advantage, but he wasn’t ready to let me walk away. He was a smiling, good-natured person and I actually enjoyed his openness. I think I knew as much about him, by the time I finally could say good-bye as I do about my next-door neighbor whom I have know for many years.

He was delightful but fit the bill of a “character”. 

I got to the cozy library lamp before anyone else spotted it. I was on a roll and the best part of the whole endeavor was that I had paid $24 for 4 wonderful chairs and $15 for a table with two leaves. I paid $5 for my wonderful clock and another $5 for my lamp.

This day was a thrifter’s dream. Mine. Everything I brought home made each space where I placed it more cozy and more interesting.

Who doesn’t love interesting?

Grandma